Duncan Schiedt stood out conspicuously as a white teenager in Harlem, but he endeared himself to the pre-World War II jazz players, and they gave him total access.

Duncan Schiedt loved jazz the moment he began slipping into New York jazz clubs at age 17. He watched, he tapped his feet, and most importantly, he took hundreds of photographs.

Schiedt stood out as a white teenager in Harlem, but he endeared himself to the musicians, and they gave him total access.

Even though jazz was never more than Schiedt’s hobby, his photos — of Bobby Short, Wes Montgomery, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Hoagy Carmichael and on and on — today comprise one of the nation’s largest collections of jazz photos. They were the basis for three of the jazz books Schiedt later published (the fourth was a biography of Fats Waller); they have been exhibited widely, including at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Chicago Public Library, and were practically the foundation, visually, of Ken Burns’ 2000 PBS documentary “Jazz.”

Schiedt died last week at age 92, just weeks after being diagnosed with abdominal cancer.

“This whole thing came upon me all too suddenly,” he emailed his friends last month. “At least I have some time to get my affairs in some sort of order.”

He donated part of his photo collection to the Indiana Historical Society. The photographs “tell the story in such a way that you can feel the rhythm and emotion of the music,” said Susan Sutton, the IHS staffer in charge of photographs.

Duncan Preston Schiedt was born in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1921, and when he and his wife moved to Indianapolis in 1951, to be near his parents, he was resigned to a life devoid of his beloved jazz. And his day job making short promotional films for nonprofit groups had nothing to do with music.

But upon arriving in flyover country, Schiedt was surprised to stumble upon a vibrant jazz scene in the two dozen clubs along Indiana Avenue, the black commercial district in the then starkly segregated Indianapolis.

He frequented the avenue’s black jazz clubs and whites-only clubs across town with his camera. There, he once noted, black musicians would tone it down for white listeners. “The music on Indiana Avenue was more experimental, avant garde,” Schiedt said in a 2011 interview with The Star. “There was a feeling this was special and different, and that it was being developed all the time.”

In the late 1950s, Schiedt attempted to revive the career of local bluesman Francis “Scrapper” Blackwell. Blackwell had quit music after the death of his collaborator, Leroy Carr, in 1935. Back then, the two had several hits, including “Naptown Blues,” but Blackwell had not performed in decades.

Schiedt promoted several shows for Blackwell, who enjoyed a small, late-in-life comeback. (Blackwell remained obscure outside the music aficionado community, however, and when he was shot dead, in 1962, The Indianapolis Star notice read simply: “Francis Blackwell, 1116 North Capitol Avenue, was found shot in the chest in the alley at the rear of 527 West 17th Street.” There was no mention of his music.)

Schiedt co-founded the Indiana Jazz Club in 1956. The group has several hundred members and regularly sponsors concerts around town.

“Everybody respected Duncan and liked him,” said bassist Mingo Jones, who began playing in local clubs in 1952. “He did a lot for musicians.”

“He was a very generous man who always was helpful,” said David Williams, whose recently published history of Indiana Avenue’s jazz scene included several of Schiedt’s photos. “He was always offering encouraging words; he wanted you to succeed.”

Schiedt started playing piano as an adult. But he never learned to read music. A cousin simply showed him some basics, he told The Star in 2000, “and it turned out I have an ear for it.”

An anonymous post to the website Jazz Lives described Schiedt’s playing as “tenderly respectful, yet always moving along.”

It’s unusual for a person to be quoted in his own obituary, but Schiedt knew he was dying and wrote a long, heartfelt email to his friends.

“I am quite accepting as it stands and grateful for a long and healthy life, great parents, a loving sister who is six years my junior, my late wife Betty, who passed away in 1987, and two very special ‘kids,’ Leslie and Cameron, of whose loyalty and genuine love I cannot say enough,” he wrote.

“Two splendid grandsons, Kalen and David Schiedt, complete the family circle I am now going to leave. A great companion for the last fifteen years or so has been Elizabeth (Liz) Kirk, whose breadth of cultural interests has served to enrich my life in my old age much as Betty complemented me in our thirty-seven years together.

“What luck this has all been for one man — who could have ever asked for more.”

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.